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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Text-Book of Elocution 



MARIA PORTER BRACE, A.B. 

(MRS. KIMBALL) 

Late Teacher of Elocution in Vassar College and in the 
Brearley School, New York 




U.hm* 



LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK 



\ 






Copyright, 1892, 
By Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn. 



C. J. PETERS & SON, 
Typographers and Electrotypers. 



Press of Berwick & Smith. 






DEDICATION. 



This little book is dedicated, in the words of Quintilian, 
to ' ' Him who is so qualified by nature that Rules will not fail 
to be of use to him." 



PREFACE. 



Iisr this age of book-making, every new treatise 
should offer an apology for its being. Such an 
apology may be particularly necessary in the case of a 
text-book of Elocution. Every " Reader " contains 
a preface which is supposed to embody the principles 
of the art of speaking, and there are also special 
treatises. Most teachers of Elocution, however, pre- 
fer, very wisely, to arrange their own courses of read- 
ing for their pupils — associating the practice of 
reading aloud with the critical study of literature. 
Having no text-book, the teacher must make his own 
verbal statement of the principles of Elocution. But 
students, whether they are boys and girls in prepara- 
tory schools, undergraduates in colleges, or young 
people who are fitting themselves for the pulpit or 
the stage, need constantly before them a concise 
statement of the rules of their art. 

The " Text-book of Elocution " aims to set forth, 
upon a scientific basis, the laws of sound as applied 
to articulate speech. It claims to do away with 
superfluous and fanciful terms, and reduce the sub- 

5 



6 PREFACE. 

ject to its essential principles. Each one of the 
topics, Pitch, Force, Quality, and Time, is treated 
from a threefold point of view ; i. e., the physiologi- 
cal, the physical, and the psychological. A few well- 
tried exercises for practice are offered under each 
topic. Brief selections illustrative of each property 
of tone are also given. A special effort is made to 
preserve the unity of the subject, while dwelling 
with sufficient detail upon the working principles of 
the art embodied in the four topics of the book. In 
order to insure the practical value of the Text-book, 
and, at the same time, a comprehensive view of the 
subject, all unnecessary amplification of topics and 
examples is avoided. 

The book is not offered as a substitute for a 
teacher. In no art is the personal skill, experience, 
and influence of a master of greater value. If the 
student who is to learn the use of rules must be 
generously equipped by nature, so must the teacher 
who is to direct the study and watch over its results. 

While we Americans acknowledge that nature 
must give place to art in the study of professional 
speech, we have apparently not yet learned that per- 
fect colloquial speech cannot be attained without 
artistic training. " Speaking naturally " often means, 
in the North, slovenly consonants and muffled vowels ; 
in the South, vowels somewhat flattened, with sup- 
pressed consonants ; in the West, harsh and exag- 



PREFACE. 7 

gerated consonants and nasal vowels. In order to 
correct such defects, the earliest lessons in Elocution 
should be given to the child in the cradle by father, 
mother, or nurse. " Before all," said Quintilian, 
" let the nurses speak properly. The boy will hear 
them first, and will try to shape his words by imitat- 
ing them." These instructions should be supple- 
mented by the teacher of Elocution in schools. 
Indeed, it is perhaps his highest office to improve 
the e very-day utterance — the " domestic voice " — 
of the rising generation. The "evolution of the 
American girl " and boy is incomplete so long as 
their voices have not been properly tuned and formed. 

It is hoped that the Text-book may be useful in 
the cultivation of colloquial as well as of professional 
Elocution. 

The author wishes especially to acknowledge, 
among other authorities, — such as Bell on Articula- 
tion and Lanier on Rhythm, — Robert R. Raymond's 
privately printed work on " Melody in Speech." 
His former pupils will recognize many of his prin- 
ciples in the chapter on Melody. He, in turn, 
acknowledged his indebtedness to Mandeville. The 
present statement, however, of the laws of melody 
in speech is the result of the author's experience in 
teaching. M. P. B. 

Genoa, Italy, May, 1892. 



A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 



i. 

HISTORY OP THE ART OP SPEAKING. 

Before entering upon the technical study of Elo- 
cution, let us glance briefly at its pedigree among the 
arts. In the ancient world Elocution formed a large 
part of the study of Eloquence, the two words having 
a common origin in the Latin verb eloquor. It is only 
lately that Elocution has been separated from the 
study of Rhetoric. If we adopt the Latin term, ars 
dicendi, the art of speaking, as representing every 
variety of Elocution, we shall find this art associated 
with some of the noblest traditions of antiquity. 
Indeed, the art of speaking may be traced back 
through two distinct lines of descent to the days of 
Homer and his cycle. 

1. Through the art of oratory, — ecclesiastical, 
judicial, and political. 

2. Through the art of the theatre. 

With the end of barbarism the history of eloquence 
and poetry began. Demosthenes in oratory, and 

9 



10 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

Sophocles in poetry, represent the two fields of clas- 
sical elocution. 

The Greek view of the human body as the reflec- 
tion of the divinity of the soul, prompted him to 
perfect every part of his physique. A complete 
physical education must therefore include the devel- 
opment and perfection of the voice. The aesthetic 
sense of the Greek taught him, too, that speech in 
its highest functions — as the instrument of the 
orator or of the poet — must be ranked among the 
fine arts. The Greek words rhetor (flowing speaker) 
and rhapsode (chanter of poems) imply that, from 
the beginning, speaking was treated as an art, and 
the speaker as an artist. 

The conditions of government in democratic 
Athens were admirable for the cultivation of political 
and judicial oratory. The large body of five hundred 
senators, and the legislature composed of the entire 
population of freemen, made public speaking an ab- 
solute necessity. There must be political leaders and 
judicial pleaders. With a language formed for the 
expression of every nicety and beauty of thought, 
with the bodily instrument pliable and athletic, with 
cultivated intellect and lofty patriotism, a Demos- 
thenes seems the natural product of his race and 
time. 

Antiquity has left us many traditions, and several 
careful records of the orator's methods of study. 



HISTORY OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 11 

Every student is familiar with the stories of Demos- 
thenes' practice of articulation by speaking with 
pebbles in his mouth, of his declaiming while run- 
ning up hill, in order to improve his respiration, and 
his study of gesture with the impending sword above 
his head. The nearest approach to a scientific analy- 
sis of the art of Elocution is to be found in Qui-n- 
tilian's " Institutes of Oratory." Cicero, too, left 
a record of his famous practice, in " De Oratore." 
These two well-known authorities insist upon the 
complete education both of mind and character as a 
part of the preparation for the practice of oratory. 
The two great orators of antiquity, Demosthenes and 
Cicero, though they regarded the art of the stage as 
secondary to their own, did not hesitate to profit by 
the instructions of actors. " Actors should be judged 
by their voices, politicians by their wisdom," said 
Demosthenes ; and said Cicero, " Delivery is to be 
ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and 
by modulation of the voice ; the great power of which, 
alone and in itself, the comparatively trivial art of 
actors and the stage proves." 

In the brilliant fourth century B.C., the art of act- 
ing became recognized in Greece as an art separate 
from that of poetry ; the players were organized into 
a guild known as the "Artists of Dionysus." "The 
whole of the art of poetry," said a Greek author, 
"is the praise of the gods." The conception of 



12 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

tragedy as an act of worship, together with the ma- 
terial conditions of the out-door theatre, necessarily 
modified the elocution and action of the ancient 
actor. Delicacy of elocution and refinement of pan- 
tomime would have been useless in such a colossal 
auditorium. In order to be seen from the most dis- 
tant parts of the amphitheatre, the actor was obliged 
to add to his height and size by the use of the 
cothurnus, liberal padding, and a large mask. It is 
said that the tragic declamation resembled a deep- 
toned chant, while the movements were slow and the 
gestures strongly marked. Power of voice was 
therefore more important than variety of timbre. 
Distinct articulation, with perfect rhythmical delivery, 
was required by the cultivated ear of the Athenian 
auditor. Hence we hear much about the elaborate 
education in music necessary for the ancient actor. 
The Phonascus, or voice-trainer, was most exacting in 
the practice of scales, and in their application to song, 
speech, or to the accompanied recitative of the tragic 
chorus. Sometimes a slave accompanied the actor to 
the theatre, and gave him the key-note for his first 
lines. Yet the perversion of this musical train- 
ing marred the tragic declamation. Ancient actors, 
like modern " elocutionists," were tempted into the 
imitation of cries of animals, the roaring of seas, 
and other meretricious effects. Athens became 
infested with her " Ranters," who were notori- 



HISTORY OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 13 

ous for their " bellowing " and " booming." Yet 
the true art and the true artists happily survived. 

In Greece, as in England, the golden age of histri- 
onic art was somewhat later than that of dramatic 
poetry. The material for the actor was, of course, 
the work of the masters of the drama. 

The Romans were mere imitators in art. While 
they copied many of the traditions of the Greek 
theatre, the spirit of Greek tragedy never existed in 
the Roman genius. 

The name of Roscius, Cicero's friend and tutor, 
stands for the art of acting among the Romans. 

With the advent of Christianity, the practice of 
oratory was extended to a field unknown to the 
ancient world, — the pulpit. In the long conflict 
between Paganism and Christianity, which culmi- 
nated in the century of Constantine, there existed 
perhaps the noblest opportunity ever known for the 
practice of the art of persuasion. The eloquence of 
the apostles themselves was succeeded by that of the 
early Fathers of the Church. The learned Greek 
and Latin " apologists " for the Christian martyrs 
used all the rich fruits of pagan culture in behalf of 
the new philosophy of life. Doubtless Justinian, 
Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, inherited the tradi- 
tions of Cicero and Quintilian, though it is said that 
the Hebraic conception of the orator as the mouth- 
piece of divine inspiration probably hindered the pol- 



14 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

ished refinement of the art of speaking. Yet the 
solemn trust to preach the new religion was in itself 
a great teacher of eloquence. The century of Con- 
stantine (the fourth of the Christian era) represents 
the formal triumph of Christianity, and has been 
called the golden age of Christian eloquence. St. 
Chrysostom is generally recognized as the master 
pleader of the new cause. 

After the recognition of Christianity by the em- 
pire, the art of speaking declined. War displaced 
the arts of poetry and oratory. The monks kept 
their cells, contenting themselves with guarding si- 
lently the precious records of classical learning. 
With the enthusiasm and fanaticism of the crusad- 
ers, the monks again became preachers. Though 
the eloquence of such a man as Peter the Hermit 
probably lacked the culture of antique models, its 
results were certainly marvellous. 

With the rise of the modern world came the re- 
turn to the old arts of peace. During the period of 
transition from ancient to modern civilization, the 
history of oratory is rather a history of men and 
causes than of speaking as a fine art. Doubtless the 
"revival of learning," the " renaissance," that wonder- 
ful uprising of the human intellect in the fifteenth, 
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, restored, with 
ancient literature, the traditions of the art of speak- 
ing. The French, with their passion for order, were 



HISTORY OF THE ART OF SPEAKING, 15 

the first to follow antique models in oratory. The 
orators of Catholic France, led by Bossuet, in the 
" century of the Grand Monarch," are said to be the 
most direct successors of the speakers of antiquity. 
Bossuet's famous funeral orations had their prototype 
in the ancient world. 

Let us turn now to the art of speaking, as devel- 
oped through dramatic poetry. The Church, con- 
stantly seeking new means for the propagation or 
restoration of religious enthusiasm, revived in her 
worship the ancient traditions of the drama. The 
germs of the so-called Mysteries and Miracle-plays 
were developed in the dramatic arrangement of music, 
tableau, and pantomime in the sacred mass. Thus 
the source, both of the ancient and the modern 
drama, is found in the idea of worship. 

The marvellous development of the English drama 
during the age of Elizabeth, and in France under 
Louis XIV., brought with the dramatic poets profes- 
sional actors. As in ancient Greece, poet and actor 
were at first one, — Shakspere and Moliere appeared 
on the stage as members of their own dramatis per- 
sonce. The guilds often formed rude dramatic com- 
panies ; the child choristers of various royal chapels 
were also utilized as players, until at last Queen 
Elizabeth and her courtiers attained to their own 
professional players, under a " Master of the Revels." 
Plays were also studied and acted at the great uni- 



16 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

versities. As early as 1612, Thomas Hey wood gives, 
in his " Apology for Actors," an estimate of the value 
of such histrionic training to the undergraduate 
students. "I, in Cambridge, have seen tragedies, 
comedies, histories, and shews publicly acted by 
graduates. It teacheth audacity to the bashful gram- 
marian, makes him a bold sophister. To come to 
Rhetoric : it not only emboldens a scholar to speak, 
but instructs him to speak well and with judgment ; 
to observe his commas, colons, and full points, his 
parentheses, his breathing spaces and distinctions ; to 
keep a decorum in his countenance, neither to frown 
when he should smile, nor to make unseemly and dis- 
guised faces in the delivery of his words ; nor to 
stare with his eyes, draw awry his mouth, confound 
his voice in the hollow of his throat, or tear his 
words hastily betwixt his teeth ; neither to buffet his 
desk like a madman, nor stand in his place like a 
lifeless image, demurely plodding, and without any 
smooth and formal motion. It instructs him to fit 
his phrases to his action, and his action to his phrase, 
and his pronunciation to them both." It is apparent 
that Heywood, like Cicero and Demosthenes, knew 
what the actor and orator might learn from each 
other. Their study of the art of speaking must, up 
to a certain point, be identical. In Hamlet's direc- 
tions to the players (Act III., sc. 2), Shakspere 
gives his own summary of tne requirements for good 



HISTORY OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 17 

acting, in speech and in pantomime. Hamlet implies 
that the art, even then, was sadly in need of reform. 

The history of English dramatic elocution may be 
traced in a succession of great names. Even before 
Shakspere left the stage we read of the famous 
Burbage and the fascinating Tarleton. Betterton 
was the great actor of the Restoration, while Garrick 
and Mrs. Siddons made the eighteenth century the 
golden age of acting in England. The nineteenth 
century, however, adds no mean names to the record, 
— Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in England, Edwin 
Booth, Joseph Jefferson, and Charlotte Cushman in 
America. 

In any comparison of ancient and modern acting, 
one must recognize the vast change in thought 
brought about by Christianity. Man, in Shak- 
spere's day, was no longer the creature of the gods, 
rewarded or punished by Fate, but a free agent work- 
ing out his own destiny. Shakspere stated the 
new law of life when he made Cassius say, that man's 
fate was not in his star, but in himself. In other 
words, the interest of the new drama was centred in 
character and its various manifestations. To inter- 
pret all the shades and contrasts of character, with 
the variety of situation involved in such dramatic 
themes, must tax to the uttermost the genius and 
skill of the actor. His elocution and pantomime must 
show far greater delicacy and subtlety than that of 



18 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

the ancient actor. As the theatres were small and 
enclosed, less power of voice, with more flexible decla- 
mation, was required. 

With this necessity for careful training, the Eng- 
lish genius has never recognized the need of a sys- 
tematic school for actors. It is true that the custom 
prevailed in the early history of the stage for a lead- 
ing actor to take a number of apprentices. But the 
art has relied chiefly upon its oral traditions, which 
have been handed down hap-hazard from one genera- 
tion of actorg to another. It has thus often hap- 
pened that English actors have never unlearned their 
own eccentricities, and in some cases the defects of 
genius have been copied as excellences by servile 
imitators. While it is folly to suppose that genius 
should reproduce itself, it has been proved in France 
that the great actors of the national theatre have had 
a direct influence in " forming " their successors. 
While the English stage can boast quite as many 
"names to conjure with" as the French, unquestion- 
ably the general standard of excellence in the pro- 
fession is lower in England than in France. There 
the art has been systematically taught for nearly two 
centuries. The Theatre Frangais was rooted in a 
school as early as 1784, when the " National Conser- 
vatory of Declamation" was founded. 

The conditions of modern life have modified the 
art of oratory as well as that of the stage. Aristotle 



HISTORY OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 19 

said that there were three instruments of Rhetoric: 
(1) the ethical, (2) the pathetic, (3) the logical. 
It is said that ancient orators, before Aristotle, used 
most freely the element of pathos ; that is, they did 
not hesitate to appeal, often unscrupulously, to the 
emotions of the crowd. Modern orators, especially 
those of Teutonic descent, limit themselves, says the 
same authority, to the effects of logic ; that is, they 
move by the power of the syllogism rather than by 
an appeal to the feelings. These limitations of 
modern eloquence refer particularly to the oratory of 
politics or of the courts. In parliamentary assem- 
blies the delivery of a speech is often a mere form, 
its value depending upon the accuracy with which it 
is " reported " in the newspapers for the speaker's 
" constituents." Under such conditions excellence 
of delivery must be of less importance than accu- 
racy and power of thought. Eloquence thus loses 
its original meaning ; it is no longer vocal but 
literary. This ascendency of literary eloquence over 
the ars dicendi represents, perhaps, the most re- 
cent state of the art. At the close of the last and 
in the beginning of the present century, England, 
France, and America produced notable orators. The 
mighty question of the social rights of man, which 
was then making the history of the three peoples, 
must needs produce its advocates. The names of 
Mirabeau, Burke, and Webster stand for the cause of 



20 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

liberty. Mr. Gladstone's glowing eloquence has 
been called out by every vital theme, and is one 
more proof of the superiority of the speaking man to 
his printed page, even in this age of newspapers. 

The later struggles for liberty in America pro- 
duced Sumner and Phillips. These men were self- 
taught speakers. Wendell Phillips said that the 
secret of his power was " the burning love of truth 
that must come out." 

The greatest opportunity of the modern orator, the 
pulpit, has in recent times been shamefully neglected 
or misused. That there are grave errors in the teach- 
ing of Elocution is apparent from the unmannerly 
reading of devotional hymns, and the uncouth eccen- 
tricities of most pulpit-elocution. Nevertheless, one 
must not forget the noble pulpit-oratory of John 
Henry Newman in England, and of Henry Ward 
Beecher in America. They represent two distinct 
types of oratory, yet they both knew how to move 
men. 

The history of the art of speaking would be incom- 
plete without some reference to its colloquial prac- 
tice. The best British talkers of our own day, men 
like Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Goschen, Matthew Arnold, 
Robert Browning, have succeeded in keeping that 
happy balance of dignity which has been described as 
" knowing how to be easy without being free and 
easy." This apparently unstudied eloquence of the 



HISTORY OF THE ART OF SPEAKING. 21 

drawing-room and the club is the result of thorough 
culture and consummate art. The " accent of a gentle- 
man," which characterizes high-bred English speech, 
is the result of long and careful training. Unfortu- 
nately in America it is often neglected, even in fam- 
ilies of education and culture. 

We have seen how laboriously the ancients discov- 
ered the laws of effective speech, and how studiously 
they applied these laws. In modern times we exalt 
the theme, and ignore the means of ably presenting it ; 
and this when the art of Elocution rests upon a scien- 
tific basis utterly unknown to the ancient world. 
Instinct and enthusiasm should be tutored by art, in 
order to make the platform, the pulpit, and the thea- 
tre worthy of the noble traditions of the past. 



22 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 



II. 

ELOCUTION -VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 

Definition. — We have followed, in the Introduc- 
tion, the history of the art of speaking, under the 
various forms of oratory, dramatic declamation, elo- 
quence, elocution, from the Acropolis of Athens to 
the drawing-rooms of America. In treating of the 
art, we shall adopt the word elocution as best suited 
to our purpose: it is simply the Latin ars dicendi (the 
art of speaking) applied either to professional or to 
colloquial speech. 

The art of speaking, as used by the ancients, in- 
cluded the perfect use of the voice and of the whole 
body as instruments for the expression of the highest 
forms of thought. Speech and Action — Elocution 
and Pantomime — were then, as now, the special 
subjects to be studied by the artistic speaker. The 
ancient teachers also insisted upon a liberal education 
of mind and character as a part of the preparation 
for effective speaking. Though Rhetoric, Elocution, 
and Pantomime are so intimately associated, each 
subject must now receive separate and special 
treatment. Rhetoric has already been specialized, 
though the art of Pantomime has, until lately, never 



VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 23 

received adequate and expert attention. The art of 
Pantomime does not belong exclusively to the pro- 
fession of Acting. This popular superstition has done 
much harm to the art of speaking. A knowledge of 
the laws of facial expression, of attitude, and of ges- 
ture — the pantomime of the whole body — is equally 
essential for the actor, the preacher, and the talker. 
As has been ably said, " The body is a house of many 
windows ; there we all sit showing ourselves and 
crying on the passers-by to come and love us." No 
man or woman is completely cultivated unless he 
knows how to use his body as an instrument perfectly 
attuned to the " cries " of the mind and the soul. The 
study of the principles and practice of Pantomime 
should therefore accompany the study of Elocution. 

Subdivisions of the Subject of Elocution. — Elocution, 
in its restricted sense, must deal with the voice from 
several points of view, — the physiological, the phy- 
sical, the psychological. The voice is a part of our 
physiological structure ; it is also a tone-producing 
instrument ; it is, as articulate speech, the direct ex- 
ponent of thought ; and, as musical sound, the accu- 
rate registrar of emotion. 

Vocal Physiology. — The first lesson in Elocution 
must then be a brief study in vocal physiology. The 
parts of the body concerned in speech are : 

The Head, 
The Throat, 
The Chest. 



24 



A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 



The chest deals directly with respiration, the throat 
with vocalization, the head with articulation. In the 
three processes of respiration, vocalization, and articu- 
lation are embodied respectively the body, the soul, 
and the mind of speech. 

The Chest. — The organs of the chest concerned in 
respiration are : — 

Diaphragm, 

Costal and Dorsal Muscles, 

Lungs, 

Bronchial Tubes. 



Chest. 



The diaphragm is a powerful but elastic muscle 
which forms the floor of the chest ; the dorsal muscles 
form the back, while the costal muscles make the 
front and sides of the chest. Within these walls of 
the chest, which are supported by the bony frame- 
work of spine and ribs, are the lungs with their 
air-cells. The lungs are penetrated by many rami- 
fications of the bronchial tubes, which unite above 
to form the wind-pipe, or trachea. 

The Throat. — The organs of the throat concerned in 
vocalization are : — 



Trachea, 



Throat. < Larynx, 



Pharynx. 



Vocal Cords, 

Cartilages, 

Glottis. 



( Thyroid, 
< Cricoid, 
( Arytenoid. 






VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



25 



The trachea is a tube composed of a series of car- 
tilaginous rings. It forms the connecting link be- 




DIAGRAM OF THE ORGANS OF SPEECH. 

(From Bell's " Visible Speech.") 
The Larynx. 5. The Back of the Tongue. 

The Pharvnx. 6. The Front of the Tongue. 

The Soft Palate. 7. The Point of the Tongue. 

The action of the Soft Palate in 8. The Lips, 
closing the Nasal Passage. 9. Hard Palate. 



tween the chest and throat. The larynx is situated 
at the top of the trachea, or wind-pipe, and is, in fact, 
an expansion of this cartilaginous tube. The larynx 



26 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

is somewhat triangular in shape, being outlined in 
front by the acute angle of the thyroid, or shield- 
shaped cartilage, and at the back by the cricoid, or 
seal-ring-shaped cartilage. From the angle of the 
thyroid cartilage to the cricoid cartilage are stretched 
two parallel cartilaginous bands known as the vocal 
cords or ligaments. These ligaments are attached 
to the cricoid cartilage by two little cartilages called 
the arytenoid or pyramidal-shaped cartilages. The 
opening between the cords is called the glottis. 
The epiglottis is a leaf-shaped cartilage situated at 
the upper part of the larynx ; to its base is attached 
the root of the tongue. The pharynx is a chamber 
having fleshy walls, and situated directly over the 
larynx, with openings into the mouth and nasal pas- 
sages. The anatomy and physiology of the larynx 
are very complex and delicate. Only the details 
necessary for an intelligent use of the organ are 
given here. (See diagram on page 25.) 

The Head. — The parts of the head which are directly 
concerned in speech are : — 

(Tongue, 
Pafate i The S ° ft Pakte ' 
Li ' ( The Hard Palate (roof of the mouth). 

v Nose. 

(See Diagram.) 
Respiration. — It may seem superfluous to describe 
the process of respiration, which we have all been 



VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 27 

practising, by the action of involuntary muscles, since 
the day of birth. But as artistic respiration, unlike 
mere vital inhalation and exhalation, is a distinctly 
voluntary process, it must be carefully understood 
and deliberately practised. Without such practice, 
beauty of voice and elegance of articulation are im- 
possible. The air which is inhaled by the speaker 
through the nose and mouth, descends through the 
pharynx, larynx, and wind-pipe to the lungs. The 
dilation of the air-cells with the in-rushing of the air 
is accomplished by the simultaneous expansion of the 
diaphragm, costal and dorsal muscles. As the lungs 
are filled with air, the diaphragm descends to its low- 
est position, and the muscular walls of the chest are 
distended. With the impulse to speak, the diaphragm 
rises towards its normal position, the walls slowly 
relax their tension, until, when the air is entirely ex- 
pelled, diaphragm, costal and dorsal muscles attain 
their normal position. There is always a residue of 
so-called vital breath in the lungs, even after the most 
exhaustive artistic use of breath. 

Vocalization. — The column of air expelled from 
the lungs strikes the vocal cords. This stroke of 
the confined air, assisted by the muscles of the larynx, 
causes a vibration of the vocal ligaments, which pro- 
duces a musical tone. The varying tension and 
relaxation of the cords, together with the vibration 
of the air in the different chambers of the throat and 



28 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

head, produce an infinite number of changes in the 
key and force of tone. It is evident that the human 
voice partakes of the nature of both a wind and a 
stringed or reed instrument. But the adjustments 
are so flue as to make possible the effects of both 
instruments, — effects which are impossible in the 
orchestra. A flute must always remain a flute ; an 
organ, an organ ; a violin, a violin. In the human 
voice, one can produce the tone-colors of all these 
instruments, wonderfully blended or contrasted. The 
pharynx and certain parts of the larynx, the mouth 
and the nose, form a series of resonators, or sounding- 
boards, for the voice. These cavities both multiply 
and shape the vibrations, thus regulating the power 
and the quality of the voice. As the walls of the 
pharynx are elastic, it is particularly adapted to the 
moulding of tone. 

Articulation. — As the tone issues from the pharynx, 
it is shaped by the mouth and nose into definite 
vowel forms, or it is cast into consonants by the 
rapid closing and opening of the tongue, teeth, 
palate, or lips. While studying in detail the pro- 
cesses of respiration, vocalization, and articulation, 
the student should remember that in practice, the 
action of the physical mechanism is an almost in- 
stantaneous and simultaneous response to the dictum 
of the brain. 

Respiration in its Relation to Speech. — The different 



VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 29 

varieties of artistic respiration may be classified as 
follows : — 

! Vocal, 
Logical, 
Emotional. 

Vocal respiration is a controlled and measured use 
of the breath for the purpose of producing beauty 
and power of tone. In correct vocal respiration, the 
words seem poised on the column of breath. The 
steady, measured flow of air forms and sustains the 
succession of vowels and consonants. A good illus- 
tration is found in the following description of the 
" Summer of All-Saints " in Acadia : — 

" Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the 
landscape 
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood. 
Peace seemed to reign upon earth ; and the restless heart of 

the ocean 
Was for a moment consoled. " 

Evangeline : Longfellow. 

Logical respiration is respiration used to aid in the 
interpretation of thought. The pauses for breath in 
the delivery of a sentence must be so arranged as to 
help rather than hinder the expression of the ideas. 
Sometimes it will not be necessary to take breath at 
every rhetorical pause, but the sustaining of breath 
throughout a series of short phrases requires as much 
skill as the measured exhalation of breath for a long 



30 



A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 



phrase. The skilful reader will supply himself with 
breath for a long phrase or a short phrase, according 
to the grouping of words in the sentence. The logi- 
cal pause and the logical respiration are evidently 
closely associated. But as the study of pause be- 
longs more accurately to the subject of Time, it will 
be treated more fully under that topic. 

" And this is what the Koman Church does for religion, feeding 
the soul not with the essential religious sentiment, not with a drop 
of the tincture of worship, but making us feel, one by one, all those 
original elements of which worship is composed.' ' 

Fireside Travels : James Kussell Lowell. 

Emotional respiration is such an artistic use of in- 
halation, suspension, or exhalation of breath as to 
convey emotion. Thus, calm, labored, or spasmodic 
respiration may suggest different states of mind. A 
deliberate and audible inhalation is indicative of en- 
durance, either enforced or heroic. Enforced endur- 
ance is shown in Cassius's respiration as he exclaims 
to Brutus (Act IV., 3) : — 

" O ye gods, ye gods ! Must I endure all this ? " 

Julius Ccesar. 

Heroic endurance is implied in Macbeth's respira- 
tion as he cries out : — 

" I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. 
Give me my armor." 

Macbeth, Act V., 4. 

A prolonged exhalation suggests an element of 

confidence or affection : — 



VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 31 

Hamlet. — " Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio ; 
A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." 

Hamlet , Y., 1. 

A deliberate holding of breath suggests surprise, 

reticence, or controlled emotion : — 

" She clos'd the door; she panted, all akin 
To spirits of the air, and visions wide : 
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!" 

Eve of St. Agnes : Keats. 

The whisper is the simplest form of speech. As 
the air issues from the trachea, it passes through the 
glottis (the vocal cords remain relaxed) into the 
pharynx and thence into the mouth, where it is 
articulated. As there is no vibration of the vocal 
cords, a strong and well-governed supply of breath 
is necessary in order to make the whisper audible. 
The use of the whisper is, therefore, an excellent 
exercise for students. The preceding examples of the 
different kinds of respiration may be practised first 
in a whisper. 

Preliminary Exercises in Respiration. — 1. Slow inha- 
lation, suspension, and exhalation of breath ; syllables 
sh and buzz. 

2. Quick but thorough inhalation, as in speaking 
or singing, suspension of breath, and slow exhalation ; 
the same syllables. 

Repeat each exercise several times with care. Use 
the exclamations Push! Pull! Puff! with different 
kinds of energy, first in a whisper, then aloud. 



32 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

Simple pantomime may accompany each utterance. 
Thus, while speaking the word, push a chair steadily 
and slowly across the room, or lift a weight in each 
hand from the horizontal to the perpendicular. The 
objects may be real or imaginary, but the action should 
be definite. Pull a bell by a rope attached to the 
clapper, with vigorous inhalation and explosive utter- 
ance of the word " Pull ! " Keep a feather floating 
in the air, or blow a soap-bubble gently and keep it 
suspended in the air by careful and quiet exhalation, 
saying again and again, " -Puff, puff! " " Toss " and 
" Catch " may also be used. One student may toss 
an imaginary ball to another student at the opposite 
side of the room. The word should be suited to the 
action. Sentences should be read at sight by one 
member of the class to the others, as a test of his 
correct use of respiration. 

Vocalization in its Relation to Speech. — In theory, the 
acts of vocalization and of articulation are distinct 
processes, but, in practice, they are so intimately asso- 
ciated that it is difficult to treat them separately. In 
both processes we are dealing with the elements of 
speech, — vowels and consonants. Philologists agree 
that the first vocal utterances of man were probably 
vowels. Thus, such exclamations as Oh ! Ah ! Ugh ! 
may be made expressive of many primitive material 
wants by a very simple vocal process. Short u (as 
in tub) in English has been called the "natural vowel," 



VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 33 

because it is produced by the easiest opening of the 
mouth and pharynx, with the vibration of the vocal 
cords. The consonants are the result of a much 
more elaborate mental and physical action than the 
vowels. 

Professor Bell classifies the elements of spoken 
language as Vowels, Glides, and Consonants or Articu- 
lations. A Vowel, scientifically speaking, is a musical 
tone produced in the larynx, and fixed in form by the 
shape of the mouth. A Vowel retains its form through- 
out its duration ; as a in f a-ther. 

A Glide is a transition from one Vowel form to an- 
other during the same impulse of breath; as a in 
ba-ne. 

BelPs Table of English Vowels and Glides. — The sounds 
are numbered for convenience, as in English the same 
sound is often represented by several different com- 
binations of letters : — 



1. 


eel. 




7. 


ask. 


12. pull. 


2. 


ill. 




8. 


ah. 


13. pool. 


3-1. 


ale. 




9. 


up. 


8-1. isle. 


4. 


ell. 




10. 


all. 


8-13. owl. 


5. 


an. 




11. 


ore. 


11-1. oil. 


6. 


earl. 


11- 


-13. 


pole. 


2-13. tube. 



" The vowels ee (1), ah (8), and oo (13)," says 
Professor Bell, " are the extremes of the natural 
vowel scale." 

Preliminary Exercises in Vocalization. — It is desirable 
to practise the notes of speech first on the simplest 



34 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

open vowel sounds, such as ah, uh, awe. All students 
who can discriminate note from note should practise 
these vowels with the musical scale. Even those who 
have very little " ear" can usually make at least three 
notes with the correct intervals. 

1. Uh, Ah, Awe. Beginning with B-flat (below 
middle C on the piano) sing first three, then five, 
then eight notes up and down the scale. Utter the 
notes with a light " staccato," first with an inhalation 
before each note, then with one inhalation for the 
groups of three, five, or eight notes. 

2. After the " staccato " practice, sustain the vowel 
sounds with a prolonged " legato," taking breath be- 
fore each vowel. 

3. Use the words, push, pull, and puff, prolonging 
the vowels, first from E-flat downwards, then rapidly, 
and " staccato" downwards to B-flat, and upwards to 
E-flat. 

4. Chant such expressions as Move slowly, Walk 
quietly, Stand firmly, Step lightly, on the four notes 
mentioned. 

5. Speak the same words, bearing in mind the dif- 
ferent keys used, while retaining the inflections of 
speech. 

6. Continue the exercise of chanting, on long sen- 
tences, grouping the words according to the require- 
ments of logical respiration. Thus (to be first 
intoned, then read) : — 



VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 35 

11 Spirits of the Bells. . . . They take such shapes and occupa- 
tions as the hopes and thoughts of mortals, and the recollections 
they have stored up, give them." 

The Chimes: Dickens. 

Articulation in its Relation to Speech. — A Consonant, 

or, more strictly, an Articulation, is an emission of 

breath or voice (oral or nasal) which is obstructed 

for an instant at some fixed point in the mouth. 

The Articulation (Consonant) is composed of two 

parts, says Professor Bell, a position followed by an 

action. The firm holding of the position and the 

prompt relaxation of the hold are equally essential 

for distinct and elegant articulation. 

Bell's Table of English Articulations (Consonants). 

BREATH. VOICE. 

, A X 

Oral. Nasal. 

Pan Ban Man 

When Wan 

Fan Van 

Thin Then 

Sin Zinc 

Shun Zh (vision) 

Church J (judge) 

X (extend) X (exist) 

Tin Din Nun 

R 

L 

Hew Yew 

King, Queen Gun Ng (song) 

The utterance of a consonant is evidently a more 
complicated process than the formation of a simple 
vowel. It is said that the characteristic cries of ani- 
mals are vowel sounds unaccompanied by consonants. 



36 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

Thus the B-a-a-a of the sheep is, to the accurate lis- 
tener, merely A-a-a-h. The formation of B is too 
complex an act for the mind and mouth of the sheep. 
The parrot and certain rare birds can acquire by 
imitation some of the articulations, but they cannot be 
said to use intelligently articulate speech. 

The vowels represent the blood, the consonants the 
bones of speech, says Richard Grant White. In other 
words y the vowels are pre-eminently the sensuous, 
the consonants the intellectual, elements of speech. 
It is possible to construct a scale representing the 
relative values of the vowels and the consonants. 
As in the spectrum of colors every hue is blended 
perfectly from violet to red, so in speech we 
pass imperceptibly from the penetrating, incisive e, 
through the sympathetic #A, to the impassioned or 
heroic o and oo. In the scale of consonants we 
recognize at one extreme the " keen-cut, thoughtful 
p and £, and at the other, the explosive, guttural, pas- 
sionate &." The poets and skilled prose-writers are 
masters in their selection of the vowels and conso- 
nants whose sound is most closely fitted to the sense. 
Indeed, the arrangement of the tone-colors of vowels 
and consonants constitutes a large part of the tech- 
nique of poetry. The timbre of the notes of speech 
will be considered more fully under Quality of Voice. 

Pronunciation. — In grouping the elements of speech 
into syllables and words, mere dictionary markings 



VOCAL PHYSIOLOGY. 37 

should not be taken as the final authority for accent 
or utterance. The only absolute guide for the pro- 
nunciation of a living language is the usage of the 
cultivated classes. In England, those classes are tol- 
erably well defined; namely, the professors in the 
universities, men of letters, the clergy, and the nobil- 
ity. In France, the Academy and the Theatre 
Fran§ais fix the standards of pronunciation. In 
America, we have no definite canon of usage. It 
is perhaps safe to say, however, that, in the larger 
cities, representatives of the clerical and the legal 
professions, men of letters and college professors, may 
be trusted to establish best usage in pronunciation. 

In order to secure an elegant pronunciation, all 
provincialisms must be absolutely abandoned. Un- 
accented syllables should be carefully uttered — not 
with pedantic nicety, however; the vowels should be 
given their correct sound, though they should some- 
times be slightly obscured in colloquial speech ; the 
consonants should be accurately but lightly sounded. 
The Century Dictionary has adopted an ingenious 
system of marking to distinguish authorized collo- 
quial, from more formal, pronunciation. 

Preliminary Exercises in Articulation and Pronunciation. 
— 1. Practise the exact position and action of every 
consonant. 

2. Practise difficult combinations of words and con- 
sonants, (1) in a whisper, (2) audibly. 



38 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

3. Poetical use of vowels and consonants. 

" Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow, 
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise." 

Paradise Lost : Milton. 

" The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from her straw-built shed, 
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed." 

Elegy: Gray. 

" All these and thousand thousands many more, 
And more deformed monsters thousand fold, 
With dreadful noise and hollow, rombling sound 
Came rushing." 

The Faerie Queene ; Spenser. 



PITCH. 39 



III. 

PITCH. 

The physical properties of tone are : — 

( Pitch, 
Tone. < Force, 
( Quality. 

In the consideration of the voice, as used in speaking, 
the element of Time must also be treated. 

Pitch of sound, whether produced by the voice or 
by any other instrument, depends upon the rapidity 
of vibrations, force upon the amplitude, quality upon 
the form of vibrations. In the human voice, pitch is 
regulated chiefly by the lengthening and shortening of 
the glottis, with the elasticity of the vocal cords. 
The supply of breath must be accurately adjusted to 
the notes of the musical scale. Thus, the lower notes, 
produced by fewer vibrations per second, require less 
breath than the upper notes. The musical scale is 
used for convenience of practice in speaking, though 
the actual intervals of speech are much shorter than 
those of singing. Sidney Lanier, who was both poet 
and musician, declares that, in the gamut of speech, 



40 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

it is possible to detect at least nine tones in the inter- 
val called in music a " whole tone." Thus the effect 
of greater extremes of pitch is gained by a narrower 
range of notes than in singing. The octave divided 
by middle C on the piano will <jover most of the exi- 
gencies of speech for the woman's voice, the range of 
the average male voice being an octave below. 

Pitch as applied to Speech. — It is said that every action 
in nature has its key-note, — the purring of the breezes 
over the mountain-sides in summer, the sighing and 
groaning of the pine forests in winter, the rustle of the 
corn-fields, the thunder of the waters. The funda- 
mental note of Niagara has been fixed in musical no- 
tation, and the key and melodies of birds' songs have 
been actually written down by careful listeners. The 
poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, has admirably expressed 
this idea of a key-note which pervades the life of the 
woods, the sea, and the streets : — 

" Listen alone beside the sea, 
Listen alone among the woods; 
Those voices of twin solitudes 

Shall have one sound alike to thee. 
Hark where the murmurs of thronged men 
Surge and sink back and surge again, — 

Still the one voice of wave and tree. 

Gather a shell from the strown beach 
And listen at its lips: they sigh 
The same desire and mystery, 

The echo of the whole sea's speech ; 
And all mankind is thus at heart, 



PITCH. 41 

Not anything but what thou art : 
And Earth, Sea, Man are all in each." 

The Sea-Limits. 

Every man and woman speaks in his or her charac- 
teristic pitch of voice. Every conversation or address 
has a definite key. This pitch may be heard through- 
out the conversation, independent of the rise and fall 
of the voice in the cadence of phrases. Thus, the 
theme of a conversation heard in an adjoining room 
can be told by the key which strikes the ear, even 
when words are lost. The changes of key are 
gradual, — ascending or descending the scale from 
the key-note. The transition is also often very abrupt. 
These modulations of key are governed by the modi- 
fications of the thought or sentiment. It follows, 
therefore, that the closer the apprehension of the 
thought or sentiment, the richer and more refined 
will be the modulations of pitch. The trained speaker 
or reader will always, however, observe the laws 
which underlie the use of pitch. A low note is ex- 
pressive, in general, of serious, solemn thought or 
emotion. The voice rises to the medium notes of 
the scale in the expression of gentle, controlled emo- 
tion or abstract thought, and it ascends towards the 
upper limits of the scale in the utterances of anima- 
tion, joy, ecstasy. If the original pitch of the voice 
is too high or too low to accommodate itself readily 
to these laws, it should, with due care, be trained up 
or down the scale. 



42 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

The key-note of any discourse having been deter- 
mined, the artistic speaker will be careful to keep all 
the modulations within the harmonic intervals of that 
musical key. Otherwise the effects of transition will 
be discordant, and the thought or sentiment distorted. 
This law should be carefully observed at the begin- 
ning of new sentences, paragraphs, or stanzas. 

The laws of pitch are equally applicable to every 
variety of discourse, — to the conduct of familiar con- 
versation, to the persuasion of the orator, to the in- 
tensity of dramatic expression. 

While the changes in pitch are indicative of many 
subtle moods of mind, it will be found that pitch is 
the property of tone which responds most directly to 
the reasoning processes ; it represents the intellect 
of the voice. This special function of pitch will be 
more apparent in the study of the melodies or tunes 
of speech. 

Examples. — Let the student decide upon the proper 
key of each selection, testing the note by chanting a 
few words before reading. The listeners should 
decide whether the speaker has accurately followed 
the chosen key while reading. 

"Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! 
Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 






PITCH. 43 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest." 
To a Sky-Lark : P. B. Shelley. 
" There is a feeling in heroic poetry or in a burst of eloquence 
that I sometimes catch in quite different fields. I caught it this 
morning, for instance, when I saw the belated trains go by, and 
knew how they had been battling with storm, darkness, and dis- 
tance, and had triumphed. The moving train is a proud spectacle, 
especially in stormy and tempestuous nights. When I look out 
and see its light, steady and unflickering as the planets, and hear 
the roar of its advancing tread, or its sound diminishing in the 
distance, am I comforted and made stout of heart. O night, where 
is thy stay ! O space, where is thy victory ! " 

Touches of Nature : John Burroughs. 

" The night wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and 
round [an old church], and moaning as it goes; and of trying, with 
its unseen hand, the windows and doors. And when it has got in, 
as one not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be, it wails 
and howls to issue forth again; and not content with stalking 
through the aisles, and gliding round and round the pillars, and 
tempting the deep organ, soars up to the roof, and strives to 
rend the rafters; then flings itself despairingly upon the stones 
below, and passes, muttering, into the vaults." 

The Chimes : Charles Dickens. 

Pitch — The Melodies of Speech. — Having studied the 
general laws of pitch as regulated by the theme and 
its modifications, let us now consider the changes 
in pitch caused by the more intimate relations of 
thought in the succession of words in a sentence. 
As in music, the general theme determines the key- 



44 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

note ; the sequence of ideas makes the melodies or 
inflections of speech. In studying the melodies of 
speech, one is confronted by limitations which are 
unknown in music. Language is, to a certain ex- 
tent, a conventional tool for the conveyance of 
thought, though philologists are able to account for 
the history of words by some natural law of growth 
in civilization. The speaker, however, must accept 
the words of a language as the symbols of ideas. 
With the words of a spoken language are associated, 
by long usage, certain definite arrangements of notes 
or melodies. It is, indeed, the melody of the spoken 
tongue which makes it live. Latin and Greek are 
"dead" languages because we no longer know the 
cadences or tunes of the idiom with which we may 
be perfectly familiar on the printed page. French or 
Italian, though pronounced accurately, is not true 
French or Italian if the native melodies are not 
associated with the acquired words. It is the diffi- 
culty of learning, with the new words of a language, 
the new tunes of speech, which makes it almost im- 
possible for an alien ever to speak perfectly an 
acquired tongue. The variations of the English 
language, as spoken in England, Ireland, Scotland, 
and America, are due not only to differences of pro- 
nunciation, but also to slight variations in the tunes 
of familiar speech. It should be noticed, however, 
that among cultivated speakers in Great Britain and 



PITCH. 45 

the United States, both in public and in private life, 
there is a marked resemblance in the melodies of 
speech. Taking this body of men and women as our 
standard of "best usage," both for pronunciation and 
melody, let us proceed to analyze some of the most 
familiar tunes of colloquial speech. These colloquial 
melodies underlie the interpretation of the noblest 
flights of eloquence or the most refined delineations 
of character. No actor can read the lines of Lear or 
Hamlet, no speaker can follow Webster or Phillips 
Brooks, without an accurate knowledge of the tunes 
of the best every-day talk. 

The voice may rise or fall by short or long inter- 
vals throughout the scale. In speaking, the voice 
invariably glides from one note to another, while in 
singing it moves generally by marked transitions 
from note to note. In singing, the vowels are often 
prolonged; the sensuous element of speech (the 
vowel) is thus made more prominent than in speak- 
ing. In uttering the melodies of speech there must 
be a perfect adjustment of vowels and consonants. 
The slightest over-doing of the vowels is an abomina- 
ble affectation, while the slurring of consonants is an 
equally unfortunate habit. 

a sentence be 

note on the 



Let the key of 
represented by a 



I 



9T ^T 



musical staff (line ° I ~ 2). The va- 

rious inflections will then rise from or fall to this 



46 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

note, or some harmonically related note. The chant, 
recitative, or monotone follows the key-note or 
one of its harmonic intervals. It is, as used in the 
opera or the liturgy of the church, a connecting link 
between song and speech. Its special function in 
speech will be explained hereafter. The rise of the 
voice is suggestive of a certain trend of thought ; its 
fall, of another definite tendency of mental action. 
Its rise and immediate fall form the peculiar melody 
of emphasis or forcible expression. These melodies 
constitute a vocal logic. They are, of course, modified 
by the changing conditions of thought ; and the stu- 
dent must consider the principal variations upon the 
original melodies as he would the exceptions to a rule 
of grammar or rhetoric. 

The melodies of speech, which are simply success- 
ive changes in pitch, are the direct exponents of 
thought. The child who is learning to read, as well 
as the student of Elocution, should master at the out- 
set the familiar tunes of thought. The usual reading 
of a child or an illiterate person (Pomona's, for ex- 
ample, as described by Mr. Stockton in " Rudder 
Grange ") is tuneless. " This-is-a-dog " is merely a 
series of words without the accompanying music of 
their utterance. 

Preliminary Exercises in Melody. — 1. Practise the 
vowels with the monotone, i.e., with long, sustained 
notes up and down the scale. 



PITCH. 47 

2. Group the sounds in two's, taking breath before 
each group. 

3. Speak words containing large, open vowels (such 
as large, aive, round, sonorous^), (1) with rising inflec- 
tions, short and long ; (2) with falling inflections ; 
(3) with the rise and fall of voice combined. 

4. Count from 1 to 10 up and down the speaking 
scale. 

Laws of Melody. — I. The monotone, which is sim- 
ply an absence of melody, is used in speech to indi- 
cate the suppression of mental activity in the presence 
of strong emotion. The monotone may suggest awe, 
deference, or the other extreme of the scale of feel- 
ing — supreme intensity of emotion. 

EXAMPLES. 

"Thou, too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, 
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, 
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, 
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast — 
Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou 
That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 
In adoration, upward from thy base, 
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears — 
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, 
To rise before me, rise, oh, ever rise ! " 

Hymn: S. T. Coleridge. 

Cymbeline. " disloyal thing, 

That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap'st 
A year's age on me ! 



48 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

Imogen. (Monotone.) " I beseech you, sir, 
Harm not yourself with your vexation. 
I am senseless of your wrath ; a touch more rare 
Subdues all pangs, all fears." 

Cymbeline, Act I., sc. 1. 

II. Starting from the key-note, the voice rises 
slightly or is suspended, at every logical pause, unless 
the word at that pause is of special value to the 
thought. By this melody the thought is carried or 
suspended until it reaches a conclusion at the end of 
the sentence. That conclusion is marked by a fall 
of the voice to the key-note. 

"The soul which animates Nature is not less significantly pub- 
lished in the figure, movement, and gesture of animated bodies, 
than in its last vehicle of articulate speech." 

Behavior: R. W. Emerson. 
" All night the dreadless angel, unpursued 
Through heaven's wide champaign, held his way, till morn, 
Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand 
Unbarred the gates of light." 

Paradise Lost : Milton. 

III. Words or phrases used in direct and familiar 

address are delivered with a short rising inflection. 

" Why, when, I say — Nay, good, sweet Kate, be merry." 

Taming of the Shrew, IV., 1. 

IV. In formal address the falling inflection is used. 

Brutus. " Romans, countrymen, and lovers ! 

Hear me for my cause, and be silent that ye may hear." 

Julius Cazsar, III., 2. 



PITCH. 49 

V. If the address becomes impassioned appeal, the 
voice rises through longer intervals of the scale. 

Wolsey. "0 Cromwell, Cromwell ! 
Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
I served my king, He would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 

Henry VIII. , III., 2. 

VI. At the close of a series of addresses or appeals, 
the last word or phrase, which often makes a climax, 
may be read with a falling inflection. 

Macbeth. " Seyton ! — I am sick at heart, 
When I behold — Seyton, I say ! — This push 
Will cheer me ever, or dis-ease me now. 
I have lived long enough ; . . . 






Seyton ! 

Enter Seyton. 
Seyton. What's your gracious pleasure ? " 

Macbeth, V., 4. 

VII. If the word of address follows a very important 
word, the falling inflection may be used ; in other 
words, an emphasis dominates all the secondary in- 
flections of a sentence. 

" A light on Marmion's visage spread, and fired his glazing eye. 
With dying hand above his head, 
He shook the fragment of his blade, 
And shouted * Victory ! — 
Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on ! ' 
Were the last words of Marmion." 

Marmion: Sir Walter Scott. 



50 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

VIII. The melody of a definite question (one 
which can be answered by "yes" or "no") is a 
gradual rise of the voice from the beginning to the 
end of the sentence. If the sentence is very long, 
the voice should ascend from an interval below the 
key-note, rise slightly through the first phrases, re- 
main suspended during the middle, and rise again 
gradually towards the end of the sentence. In this 
way the effect of a continuous rise of voice is secured 
without extending unnecessarily the limits of the 
speaking scale. 

" We [members of the British Parliament] were nothing but in- 
struments. Do you, after this, wonder that you have no weight 
and no respect in the Colonies ? After this, are you surprised that 
Parliament is every day and everywhere losing (I feel it with sor- 
row ; I utter it with reluctance) that reverential affection which so 
endearing a name of authority ought ever to carry with it ; that 
you are obeyed solely from respect to the bayonet ; and that this 
House, the ground and pillar of freedom, is itself held up only by 
the treacherous under-pinning and clumsy buttresses of arbitrary 
power . American Taxation : Edmund Burke. 

IX. In a series of definite questions, a climax may 
be produced by reading the last question with a fall- 
ing inflection. 

Shylock. " Three thousand ducats : well. 
Bassanio. Ay, sir, for three months. 
Shy. For three months : well. 

Bass. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound. 
Shy. Antonio shall become bound : well. 

Bass. May you stead me ? Will you pleasure me ? Shall I 
know your answer ? » The Merchant of Venice ^ Lj 3. 



PITCH. 51 

X. The melody of an indefinite question is a 
gradual fall of the voice from the beginning to the 
end of the sentence. If the sentence is very long the 
voice should descend, in the manner described in 
the treatment of the rise of voice, in a long, definite 
interrogative. 

11 But first whom shall we send 
In search of this new world ? Whom shall we find 
Sufficient ? Who shall tempt, with wand' ring feet, 
The dark unbottom'd infinite abyss, 
And through the palpable obscure find out 
His uncouth way, or spread his airy flight, 
Upborne with indefatigable wings 
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive 
The happy isle ? What strength, what art can then 
Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe 
Through the strict senteries and stations thick, 
Of angels watching round ? " 

Paradise Lost : Milton. 

XI. A sentence exclamatory in form may be either 
ejaculatory or interrogatory in spirit. A declarative 
sentence may also be used as an exclamation or in- 
terrogation. The melody must, of course, closely 
follow the intention of the speaker. 

XII. The usual melody of the declarative sentence 
is marked by the return of the voice to the key-note. 

" So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave 
the sense, and caused the people to understand the law." 

Nehemiah: Bible. 



52 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

XIII. In a series of sentences forming a paragraph 
or stanza, the voice should not fall to the key-note 
until the close of the last sentence. The preceding 
sentences should be closed with a suspension, rise, or 
partial fall of the voice, according to the connection 
of thought between sentence and sentence. 

"We should not bestow our faculties on a multitude of small 
and unimportant affairs. This is to waste them without benefit to 
ourselves or to mankind. We should employ them in the pursuit 
of some great and good end." 

" Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch' d the sword, 
And strongly wheel' d and threw it. The great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, 
And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch, 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. 
So flash' d and fell the brand Excalibur." 

Morte tf Arthur : Lord Tennyson. 

Melody of Emphasis. — We come now to the consid- 
eration of the more complex melody of emphasis, — 
the rise and immediate fall of the voice. Emphasis 
means, etymologically, " forcible expression." There 
are many ways of producing " forcible expression," 
but this peculiar speech-tune (a combination of the 
rising and falling inflection) is the essential means of 
emphasis. Its peculiar office is to discriminate the 






PITCH. 53 

word or phrase marked by its cadence from all related 
ideas, expressed or understood. Thus : " The animal 
you see is a horse" That is, it is not a dog nor a 
cow. " It is a bay horse ; " — it is not a black nor a 
gray horse. It will be found that this melody under- 
lies or accompanies every other means of emphasis. 
Thus the sentence, " Come here ! " may be spoken 
softly or with tremendous force, " Come here ! " 
With the added force, an intensified form of the 
melody of emphasis is used. The melodies of em- 
phasis accompany also a change of key : — 



"Come here!" 



Changes in time and timbre also do not obliterate 
the appropriate melodies of emphasis. 

It will be seen from the preceding examples, 
that, as the thought becomes intensified, the melody 
of emphasis includes a longer interval of notes, 
and that this interval is generally lengthened by a 
rise in the scale. Thus 
This law varies, however, 
different languages or 
lects. Thus, a distinguishing characteristic of the 
Scotch dialect is found in the fact that the melody of 
emphasis does not rise, but falls, from the key-note 
to the culmination of the emphatic phrase. In Eng- 
lish, the melody of emphasis begins at the logical 




54 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

pause preceding the emphatic phrase, rises gradually 
to the accented syllable of the central word in the 
phrase, and falls to the succeeding logical pause. 
Thus: — 

" I was ( as yet [ a stranger in England." 

The melody of emphasis may include a single word 
or a long phrase ; thus : — 

" Arm ! Arm ! it is — it is the cannon's opening roar ! " 

In studying the melodies of emphasis, two principles 
should constantly be borne in mind : — 

1. The distribution of emphasis. 

2. The concentration of emphasis. 

In distributing or placing emphasis in a sentence, 
the reader must theoretically mark every important 
word or phrase by the characteristic melody of the 
voice. In practice, however, it will be found that 
some of these melodies must be modified or omitted 
for the sake of euphony ; hence the principles of con- 
centration or economy of emphasis. 

Distribution of Emphasis. — XIV. A new idea must 
always be emphatic. 

" To die, — to sleep, — 
To sleep! perchance to dream! ay, there's the rub^ 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause.' ' 

Hamlet, III., 1. 



PITCH. 55 

XV. If the same idea recurs throughout the pas- 
sage, though in the same or in different words, it is 
unnecessary to repeat the melodies of emphasis. 

Bassanio. " Sweet Portia, 

If you did know to whom I gave the ring, 

If you did know for whom I gave the ring, 

And would conceive for what I gave the ring, 

And how unwillingly I left the ring. 

When naught would be accepted but the ring, 

You would abate the strength of your displeasure." 

Merchant of Venice, V., 1. 

XVI. If the words are repeated in order to inten- 
sify the thought, the melodies of emphasis should be 
correspondingly lengthened. 

" Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
Thou art not so unkind 

As man's ingratitude ; 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 

Although thy breath be rude." 

As You Like It, II., 7. 

XVII. If the words are repeated in order to 
strengthen the thought by mere reiteration, the mel- 
odies of emphasis should simply be repeated. 

" And every word its ardor flung 
From off its jubilant iron tongue 
Was War! War! War!" 

Thomas Buchanan Head. 

XVIII. The rhetorical figure, simile, should always 
be read with a marked melody of emphasis. At the 



56 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

close of such a strong emphasis, the voice sometimes 
falls to the key-note at the succeeding logical pause. 

" Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they 
leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as 
a strong people set in battle array." 

Joel: Bible. 

XIX. The intensive particles, such as though, even, 
whether expressed or understood, are always fol- 
lowed by a marked emphasis. 

" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him." —Bible. 

Concentration of Emphasis. — The following laws of 
melody are to be used as modifiers of the preceding 
principles, in order to promote the harmony of the 
sentence by omitting superfluous melodies. 

XX. In a long series of modifying words or 
phrases, postpone the melody of emphasis to the last 
member of the series. If, however, each member of 
the series is equally valuable, the melodies of empha- 
sis must follow the thought without regard to eu- 
phony. 

" The thing I want to see is not Redbook lists and Court 
Calendars and Parliamentary Registers, but the Life of Man in 
England : what men did, thought, suffered, enjoyed ; the form, 
especially the spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its outward en- 
vironment, its inward principle; how and what it was; whence it 
proceeded, whither it was tending." 

BoswelVs Life of Johnson : Thomas Carlyle. 



FITCH. 57 

XXI. When the important word is followed by a 
modifying phrase or clause, postpone the emphasis to 
the most important word in the modifier. 

" A violet by a mossy stone, 
Half hidden from the eye; 
Fair as a star, when only one 
Is shining in the sky." 

William Wordsworth. 

" An American in an English house will soon adopt the opinion 
that the English are the very kindest people on earth, and will re- 
tain that idea as long, at least, as he remains on the inner side of 
the threshold. Their magnetism is of a kind that repels strongly 
while you keep beyond a certain limit, but attracts as forcibly if 
you get within the magic line. 

Our Old Home : Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Surrey. M The heads of all thy brother cardinals 
(With thee, and all thy best parts, bound together) 
Weigh'd not a hair of his." 

Henry VIIL, III., 3. 

XXII. In a complicated antithesis, suppress the 
emphasis upon one member of each theoretically em- 
phatic group of words. 

" On parent's knees, a naked new-born child, 
Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled ; 
So live, that, sinking in thy last long sleep, 
Calm thou may'st smile, while all around thee weep." 

From the Persian: Sir William Jones. 

Major and Minor Cadences in Emphasis. — In familiar, 
unimpassioned speech the melodies of emphasis occur 
in major intervals of moderate length. If the theme 
becomes exalted or heroic, the intervals are generally 



58 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

lengthened. The following descriptions of English 
and Italian scenery illustrate, respectively, the nar- 
rower and the wider range of emphasis. 

" On English ground 
You understand the letter . . . ere the fall, 
How Adam lived in a garden. All the fields 
Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like ; 
The hills are crumpled plains, — the plains, parterres, 
The trees round, woolly, ready to be clipped ; 
And if you seek for any wilderness 
You find, at best, a park. 

Not a grand nature. Not my chestnut woods 
Of Vallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs 
To the precipices. Not my headlong leaps 
Of waters, that cry out for joy or fear 
In leaping through the palpitating pines, 
Like a white soul tossed out to eternity 
With thrills of time upon it . . . Italy 
Is one thing, England one." 

Aurora Leigh: Mes. Browning. 

When weakness, pathos, or melancholy is to be 
expressed, the cadences of emphasis are shortened 
and become minor, as in music. 

" Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ? 
How can ye chant, ye little birds, 

And I sae weary, fu' o' care ? 
Thou' It break my heart, thou warbling bird, 

That wantons through the flowering thorn ; 
Thou minds me o' departed joys, 
Departed — never to return. ' ' 

The Banks o 1 Doon : Robert Burns. 



FORCE. 59 



IV. 

FORCE. 

Foece or power of tone depends upon the length 
of the vibrations of the resonant medium. Physio- 
logically, power of voice is produced by a liberal but 
measured supply of breath, which, striking accu- 
rately the vocal cords, produces a complete vibra- 
tion of the air in the resonance chambers of the 
voice. Other things being equal, the stronger the 
current of breath, the louder the sound uttered. 

A Scale of Force. — As we have adopted the musical 
scale of eight notes as the basis of melody in speech, 
let us construct a similar scale or measure of Force. 

Imagine a gamut of eight degrees of force, includ- 
ing the intermediate fractions of intervals. 

At one extreme we 
have soft force.which 




gradually in creases 
l oud. to medium, and final- 
ly to loud force ; or, in musical terms, a crescendo 
from pianissimo to fortissimo. The element of Force 
is less subtle than that of Pitch in its influence upon 
speech. It does not enter into the refinements of 



60 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

thought, but is broadly expressive of various degrees 
of strength or weakness, either physical or spiritual. 
Soft force is an index of physical weakness or 
depression, and also of tender and suppressed emo- 
tion. 

" The lovely lady, Christabel, 
Whom her father loves so well, 
What makes her in the wood so late, 
A furlong from the castle gate ? 
She stole along, she nothing spoke, 

The sighs she heard were soft and low. 
And naught was green upon the oak 

But moss and rarest mistletoe : 
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, 
And in silence prayeth she." 

Christabel: S. T. Coleridge. 

Medium force is used in colloquial or didactic utter- 
ance, and also in the expression of controlled emo- 
tion. 

" I grieve to say it, but our people, I think, have not generally 
agreeable voices. The marrowy organisms, with skins that shed 
water like the backs of ducks, with smooth surfaces neatly padded 
beneath, and velvet linings to their singing-pipes, are not so com- 
mon among us as that other pattern of humanity with angular out- 
lines and plane surfaces . . . and voices at once thin and strenu- 
ous — acidulous enough to produce effervescence with alkalies, and 
stridulous enough to sing duets with the katydids." 

0. W. Holmes. 

Loud force expresses exuberance of power — in 
pleasure or in passion. 



FORCE. 61 

u God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 
To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries ! 
Cavaliers, up ! Lips from the cup, 
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup 
Till you're — 

(Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song." 
Cavalier Tunes, I. , 2 : Robert Browning. 

It is evident that the force of a given passage or 
characterization may be determined in outline by the 
general style of the composition. The secondary 
changes in force may be abrupt or gradual, accord- 
ing to the movement of thought. The following 
passage illustrates both gradual and abrupt transi- 
tions in force. 

11 Meanwhile, Standish had noted the faces and figures of Indians 
Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the forest, 
Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of their ambush. 

Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from 
its scabbard, 

Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage 

Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiend-like fierceness upon it. 

Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war- 
whoop ; 

And like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of December, 

Swift and sudden and keen, came a flight of feathery arrows. 

Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the 
lightning ; 

Out of the lightning, thunder, and death unseen ran before it." 
The Courtship of Miles Standish : Henry W. Longfellow. 



62 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

Relative Value of the Terms Soft and Loud. — The 

terms soft and loud are relative in value. In a large 
room, soft force must strike the ear of the listeners as 
soft, and loud force must seem loud. When many 
persons are speaking at once (as in a drawing-room), 
medium force which would be appropriate under or- 
dinary circumstances must be lessened in order not 
to interfere with the " general good." 

Preliminary Exercises in Force. — (These exercises 
should not be practised until the student has abso- 
lute control of his breath in the production of vow- 
els and consonants.) 

1. Practise the scale of Force as follows : — 



Count<j3^4 (breathe) 5-6-7-8 

2. Reverse the exercise. 

3. Chant Push, with force, from 1-4 (-^usH !) 

Use other vowels and phrases in the same way. 

4. Reverse the exercise : Pus?T> 



5. Shout: Bun! Run!! RUN!!! using the ap- 
propriate emphasis with the Force. 

6. Read carefully the sentences given above as 
illustrations of different degrees of Force. 

Stress. — Stress, as used in Elocution, may be de- 



FORCE. 63 

scribed as a mode of force. As pitch applied to the 
succession of thought in a sentence becomes melody, 
so force applied to syllables of a word becomes 
stress. When the main pressure of force falls upon 
the beginning of a syllable, it is called Radical (root) 
Stress ; thus, Arm ! Hurry ! In words of more than 
one syllable, Stress falls principally upon the accented 
syllable. Indeed, it is by means of a slight Stress 
that " accent " is produced. 

When the pressure falls upon the middle of a 
syllable it is called Median Stress ; as, Soothe, 
Lullaby. 

Stress placed upon the end of a syllable is called 
Final or Terminal Stress ; as, Loathe, Defy. 

Stress which is evenly distributed throughout 
the syllable is called Thorough Stress ; as, Hurrah ! 
Hurrah ! 

Radical Stress corresponds to the musical term 
staccato ; Median, to legato. Radical Stress conveys 
impressions of activity, energy, — either mental or 
physical. In common with the other varieties of 
Stress, it may be used with every degree of force — 
from the softest whisper to the loudest shout. 

"Fieupon't! foh! About, my brains ! I have heard, 
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, 
Have, by the very cunning of the scene, 
Been struck so to the soul, that presently 
They have proclaimed their malefactions; 
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak 



64 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players 
Play something like the murder of my father, 
Before mine uncle ; . . . the play's the thing, 
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." 

Hamlet, II., 2. 

" If it be true that there is hereafter to be neither a Russian pol- 
icy, nor a Prussian policy, nor an Austrian policy, nor a French 
policy, nor even, which yet I will not believe, an English policy, 
there will be, I trust in God, an American policy. If the author- 
ity of all these governments be hereafter to be mixed and blended, 
and to flow in one augmented current of prerogative over the face 
of Europe, sweeping away all resistance in its course, it will yet 
remain for us to secure our own happiness by the preservation of 
our own principles; which I hope we shall have the manliness to 
express on all proper occasions, and the spirit to defend in every 
extremity." 

The Bevolution in Greece : Daniel Webster. 

Median Stress, the legato of music, marks tranquil 

or controlled experience. 

" Calm is the morn, without a sound, 
Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 
And only through the faded leaf 
The chestnut pattering on the ground." 

In Memoriam : Lord Tennyson. 

" Since first the dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, 
three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its 
sands, —the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the First 
of these great powers, only the memory remains ; of the Second, the 
ruin; the Third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget their 
example, may be led through prouder eminence to less pitied 
destruction. 

" The exaltation, the sin, the punishment of Tyre have been re- 
corded for us, in perhaps the most touching words ever uttered by 
the Prophets of Israel against the cities of the stranger. But we 



FORCE. 65 

read them as a lovely song, and close our ears to the sternness of 
their warning; for the very depth of the Fall of Tyre has blinded 
us to its reality, and we forget, as we watch the bleaching of the 
rocks between the sunshine and the sea, that they were once ' as 
in Eden, the garden of God.' 

" Her successor, like her in perfection of beauty, though less in 
endurance of dominion, is still left for our beholding in the final 
period of her decline ; a ghost upon the sands of the sea, so weak, 
so quiet, so bereft of all but her loveliness, that we might well 
doubt, as we watched her faint reflection in the mirage of the 
lagoon, which was the City, and which the Shadow." 

The Stones of Venice : John Kuskin. 

Final Stress indicates power held in reserve for the 
ultimate exercise of tremendous energy. 

" And, Douglas, more I tell thee here, 

Even in thy pitch of pride, 
Here in thy hold, thy vassals near 
(Nay never look upon your lord, 
And lay your hands upon your sword), 

I tell thee, thou'rt defied! 
And if thou said'st, I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 

Lord Angus, thou hast lied!" 

Marmion: Sir Walter Scott. 

" From that first necessary assertion of Luther's, i You, self- 
styled Papa, you are no Father in God at all : you are — a Chi- 
mera, whom I know not how to name in polite language ! ' — 
from that onwards to the shout which rose round Camille Des- 
moulins in the Palais-Royal, ' Aux Armes ! ' when the people had 
burst up against all manner of Chimeras, — I find a natural his- 
torical sequence. That shout, too, so frightful, half-infernal, was 
a great matter. Once more the voice of awakened nations, — 
starting confusedly, as out of nightmare, as out of death-sleep, 



66 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

into some dim feeling that Life was real; that God's world was not 
an expediency and diplomacy ! Infernal ; — yes, since they would 
not have it otherwise. Infernal, since not celestial or terrestrial ! 
Hollowness, insincerity has to cease; sincerity of some sort has to 
begin. Cost what it may, reigns of terror, horrors of French 
Kevolution or what else, we have to return to truth. Here is a 
Truth, as I said : A Truth clad in hell-fire, since they would not 
but have it so !" 

Hero Worship : Thomas Cablyle. 

Thorough Stress implies merely a mechanical exer- 
tion of force, as in calls or commands. 

" Some to the common pulpits! and cry out, 
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement! ,, 

Julius Ccesar, III., 1. 

Stress in Colloquial Elocution. — In ordinary conver- 
sation the constant use of any one stress should be 
avoided. If the tendency is to continually employ 
Radical Stress, let the student make special study 
and application of Median Stress, and vice versa. In 
the average speech of the cultivated man or woman, 
Median Stress should predominate. 



QUALITY. 67 



QUALITY. 

The word quality is so vague a term that it is dif- 
ficult to restrict it to a scientific use. The French 
word, timbre (stamp), or the German compound, 
hlang-farbe (tone-color), is more accurate. In 
Physics, the stamp, color, or quality of tone is 
produced by the peculiar form given to the waves 
of sound. The vibrations originated in the violin 
have one form, those in the flute another, and those 
in the cornet still another. In the human voice the 
resonance chambers of the larynx, pharynx, and head 
are the principal factors of tone-quality. Thus an 
individual, a family, and even a race, may be stamped 
by heredity with a peculiar quality of voice. But, 
as has been already said, the human voice is superior 
to other instruments in that it is possible to modify, 
at will, its original timbre. Since, then, the voice is 
so easily susceptible of education, there is small 
excuse for the transmission of a disagreeable family 
voice. 

The Timbre of Vowels and Consonants. — The vowels 
and consonants represent, in their original form, a 



68 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

scale of different tone-colors. But these different 
colors can be given approximately to each one of the 
vowels. According to Professor Bell's scale of 
vowels and consonants, given above (pp. 33 and 35), 
the " vowels ee, ah, and oo are the extremes of the 
natural vowel scale : the closest lingual vowel is ee, 
the closest labial oo, and the most open sound ah" 
The vowels which intervene in the scale are approxi- 
mate in form to these. Of the consonants, Professor 
Bell says, that P, B, and M" have the most anterior 
formation," thence the scale moves on to T, D, and iV, 
reaching finally K, Gr, and Ng, " which have their 
seat farthest within the mouth." The predominance 
of any one of these three sets of vowel and consonant 
shapes produces a definite tone-color or quality of 
voice. The skilful use of this subtle element of 
speech, Quality, is most apparent in the higher forms 
of poetry, and in the best prose-writing. Indeed, 
English prosody is largely a study of the harmony of 
vowel and consonant colors in Alliteration, Rhyme, 
and Blank Verse. 

Qualities of Voice. — If the ideas to be conveyed 
(whether in poetry or in familiar speech) are clear, 
animated, incisive, the ee andp colors prevail, and the 
quality of voice is Brilliant. 

" Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest and youthful Jollity, 
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, 
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles." 

£' Allegro: John Milton. 



! 



QUALITY. 69 

11 We ministers cannot help noting with interest among the symp- 
toms of our time the way in which the preacher himself is regarded. 
. . . The preacher is no longer the manifest superior of other men 
in wit and wisdom. . . . There are two great faults of the minis- 
try which come, one of them from ignoring, the other from rebel- 
ling against, this change in the attitude of the minister and the peo- 
ple towards each other. The first is the perpetual assertion of the 
minister's authority for the truth which he teaches. . . . And the 
other fault is the constant desire to make people hear us who seem 
determined to forget us. This is the fault of sensational preaching. 
A large part of what is called sensational preaching is simply the 
effort of a man who has no faith in his office or in the essential 
power of truth to keep himself before people's eyes by some kind of 
intellectual fantasticalness. ... It is more tempting to be clever 
and unjust than to be serious and just. Every preacher has con- 
stantly to make his choice which he will be. It does not belong to 
men, like angels, to be ' ever bright and fair ' together. And the 
anxious desire for glitter is one of the signs of the dislodgement of 
the clerical position in our time." 

Yale Lectures on Preaching : Phillips Brooks. 

If the ideas are agreeable, harmonious, sympathetic, 
the ah colors prevail, and the quality of voice is 
Mellow. 

14 This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, 
Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim ; 
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, 
Its soft meandering Spanish name. 
What a name ! Was it love or praise ? 
Speech half-asleep or song half-awake ? 
I must learn Spanish, one of these days, 
Only for that slow sweet name's sake." 

The Flower's Name : Robert Browning. 



70 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

"Running through Beckley Park, clear from the chalk, a little 
stream gave light and freshness to its pasturage. . . . The view 
was sweet and pleasant to him, for all the babbling of the water 
was of Rose ; and winding in and out, to east, to north, it wound 
to embowered hopes in the lover's mind, to tender dreams ; and 
often at dawn, when dressing, his restless heart embarked on it and 
sailed into havens, the phantom joys of which colored his life for 
him all the day. But most he loved to look across it when the light 
fell, The palest solitary gleam along its course spoke to him rich 
promise. The faint blue beam of a star chained all his longings, 
charmed his sorrows to sleep. Rose, like a fairy, had breathed her 
spirit here ; and it was a delight to the silly luxurious youth to lie 
down and fix some image of a flower bending to the stream on his 
brain, and in the cradle of fancies that grew round it, slide down 
the tide of sleep." 

Evan Harrington : George Meredith. 

If the ideas are heroic, sublime, the oh and oo colors 
prevail; and the quality of voice is sonorous, or 
Orotund. 

" Stormy the day of her birth ; 

Was she not born of the strong, 
She, the last ripeness of earth, 

Beautiful, prophesied long ? 
Stormy the days of her prime ; 

Hers are the pulses that beat 
Higher for perils sublime, 

Making them fawn at her feet. 

Was she not born of the strong ? 

Was she not born of the wise ? 
Daring and counsel belong 

Of right to her confident eyes : 
Human and motherly they, 

Careless of station or race : 



QUALITY. 71 

Hearken ! her children to-day- 
Shout for the joy of her face." 
An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876 : James Kussell Lowell. 

11 1 never shall forget the half day that I spent on Gorner Grat, 
in Switzerland. ... It is a barren rock, with snow only here and 
there in the cracks and crevices ; but oh ! what a vision opened 
upon me as I cast my eyes around the horizon ! There stood some 
fifteen of Europe's grandest mountains. Down from the sides of 
these mountains flowed ten distinct glaciers beside. I swept the 
horizon, and saw at one glance those glorious elevations, on whose 
tops the sun kindled all the melodies and harmonies of light. I 
was alone. I disdained company. I was a son of God, and I felt 
eternity and God and glory. And life ! — its murmur was like the 
murmur of the ocean when you hear the beating of the surf against 
the shore twenty miles away. Life! — it was like the faintest 
memory of a fading dream. And the influences that had subdued 
me or warped me — in that royal hour of coronation I lifted them 
up, and asked, in the light of the other sphere, what are ambition 
and vanity and selfishness, and all other worldly passions ? Look- 
ing down from that altitude, I gained anew a right measure of life. 
I never have forgotten it, and I never shall forget it till that vision 
lapses into the eternal one ! 

" Thus, too, one may stand on a mount of vision, quite apart from 
life and its seductive influences, and there fashion again and read- 
just all his moral measurements." 

Sermon in Plymouth Church, 1866 : Henry Ward Beecher. 

Variations of Tone-Colors in the Same Words. — As has 
been already hinted, it is possible to make every 
vowel approximately Brilliant, Mellow, or Orotund 
in quality. By changing the qualities of voice 
upon the same word or phrase, a great variety of 



72. A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

meanings may be conveyed. The French monologue, 
" Oh Monsieur ! " the German comedy, " Come Here ! " 
the clown's "O Lord, Sir ! " (in "All's Well that 
Ends Well ") are all based upon the possibility of vary- 
ing the speech-colors and melodies of these phrases, 
under changing dramatic situations. It is evident 
that the vowel forms have greater elasticity than 
those of the consonants. P is more inflexibly p 
than ee, ee. Hence the vowels are a more impor- 
tant element in tone-quality than are the consonants. 

Quality is pre-eminently the sensuous element in 
speech. Its province is the expression of beauty in 
thought or feeling. Yet, in itself, it has something 
of the range of ideas conveyed by Pitch and by Force. 
The Brilliant tone-colors may become exponents of 
clear thinking, the Mellow of refined sentiment, the 
Orotund of robust energy of feeling. The ability to 
blend or contrast these tone-colors constitutes one of 
the most subtle and charming elements of speech. 

Impure Qualities of Voice. — There are certain impure 
qualities of voice — such as the Guttural and Nasal 
qualities — which are produced by an imperfect action 
of the organs of speech. These Qualities are some- 
times used for dramatic purposes, but should be 
avoided, rather than cultivated, by the average stu- 
dent. The special student should make use of these 
"depraved" Qualities of voice only under the careful 
supervision of a teacher. 



QUALITY. 73 

Preliminary Exercises in Quality of Voice. — 1. Practise 
the musical scale with the table of vowels from 
ah — oo. Prolong the notes with full Orotund 
Quality. 

2. Add the vowels from ah — ee. Avoid any 
change of Quality with the changes in Pitch. 

3. Use all the vowels with Mellow, and finally 
with Brilliant Quality. 

4. Practise carefully the succession of tone-colors 
from e — ah — oo, gradually varying the timbre ; give 
this exercise with a steady, even exhalation of breath. 

5. Repeat the exercises, substituting appropriate 
words and phrases for sounds. Thus, sonorous, 
robust, victorious, calm, large, prim, fan, mean, 
green, etc. 

In American speech the quality of voice is often 
marred (1) by incomplete opening of the mouth ; 
(2) by laxity of the soft palate producing exagger- 
ated resonance in the nose ; (3) by catarrhal obstruc- 
tion of the nose causing incomplete resonance in that 
organ. 

1. To correct the first defect, chant words, making 
all the vowels large and sonorous. 

2. For the second, practise the open vowels with 
marked radical stress, up and down the scale. 

3. For the third, practise the scale with the nasal 
consonants M, JV, Ng. Occasionally exaggerate those 
sounds in speech, for the sake of practice. 



74 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 



VI. 

TIME. 

All sound which appeals agreeably to the ear is 
subject to certain laws of time. Time, as applied to 
speech, involves the consideration of : — 

iRate of Utterance, 
Rhythm, 
Pause. 

Rate of Utterance. — The rate of utterance, i.e., the 
number of syllables spoken per second, is regulated 
by the subject. Just as the theme of a musical com- 
position moves the composer to write at the begin- 
ning of his score, Adagio, Moderato, or Allegro, so the 
subject of a poem or discourse fixes its rate of 
utterance as Slow, Moderate, or Quick. For con- 
venience, a scale of rate may be constructed thus : — 

SLOW. ^- EPItJj f QtJlCK. 

1 2 3—4—5-6-7-8 

If the theme is meditative, serious, solemn, the 
Time must be Slow. 

" The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober coloring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; 

Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 



TIME. 75 

Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 

To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

Ode : William Wordsworth. 

11 The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the 
prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape 
from the limitations of our own weakness, and an invocation of 
all good to enter and abide with us ; or else a self-oblivious lif ting- 
up of gladness, a Gloria in Excelsis that such good exists ; both the 
yearning and the exultation gathering their utmost force from the 
sense of communion in a form which has expressed them both, 
for long generations of struggling fellow-men. The Hebrew liturgy, 
like others, has its transitions of litany, lyric, proclamation, dry 
statement, and blessing, but this evening all were one for Deronda. 
The chant of the Chazan's, or reader's, grand wide-ranging voice, 
with its passage from monotony to sudden cries ; the outburst of 
sweet boys' voices from the little choir; the devotional swaying of 
men's bodies backward and forward; the very commonness of the 
building and shabbiness of the scene, where a national faith 
which had penetrated the thinking of half the world, and moulded 
the splendid forms of that world's religion, was finding a remote 
obscure echo — all were blent for him as one expression of a bind- 
ing history, tragic and yet glorious. . . . The whole scene was 
a coherent strain, its burden a passionate regret, which, if he had 
known the liturgy for the Day of Keconciliation he might have 
clad in its antithetic burden : * Happy the eye which saw all 
these things ; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul. 
Happy the eye that saw our temple and the joy of our congrega- 
tion; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul. Happy the 
eye that saw the fingers when tuning every kind of song ; but 
verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul/ " 

Daniel Deronda : George Eltot. 



76 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

As the subject approaches the familiar topics of 
every-day life, the time is quickened, — becomes 
Moderate. 

" There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching, — 
at least of very sweet, soft, and winning effect, — in this peculiarity 
of needle-work distinguishing women from men. Our own sex 
is incapable of any such by-play aside from the main business of 
life ; but women — be they of what earthly rank they may, however 
gifted with intellect or genius, or endowed with awful beauty — 
have always some little handiwork ready to fill the tiny gap of 
every vacant moment." 

The Marble Faun : Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

u The paramount virtue of religion is, that it has lighted up 
morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful 
for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying 
the ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with most 
dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the Christian 
religion manifests it with unexampled splendor. ' Lead me, 
Zeus and Destiny,' says the prayer of Epictetus, 'whithersoever 
I am appointed to go, I will follow without wavering ; even though 
I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to follow all the same.' 
The fortitude of that is for the strong, for the few ; even for them 
the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds them is bleak 
and gray. But, ' Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into the land 
of righteousness;' — 'The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting 
light, and thy God thy glory; ' — * Unto you that fear my name, 
shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings,' says 
the Old Testament; 'Born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ; ' — ' Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God; ' — ' Whatsoever is 
born of God, overcometh the world,' says the New." 

Essay on Marcus Aurelius : Matthew Arnold. 

When the theme becomes animated, vivacious, the 
rate of utterance is Quick. 



TIME. 77 

"I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; 

c Good speed ! ' cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew, 

' Speed ! ' echoed the wall to us galloping through. 

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 

And into the midnight we galloped abreast." 
How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix: 

Robert Browning. 

" When the Crown did come to George Louis he was in no hurry- 
about putting it on. He waited at home for a while ; took an 
affecting farewell of his dear Hanover and Herrenhausen, and set 
out in the most leisurely manner to ascend l the throne of his an- 
cestors,' as he called it in his first speech to Parliament 

I am a citizen waiting at Greenwich pier, say, and crying, Hurrah 
for King George ; and yet I can scarcely keep my countenance, 
and help laughing at the enormous absurdity of this advent. Here 
we are, all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
prostrating himself to the head of his church. . . . Here is my 
Lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling, too, the greatest warrior 
of all times ; he who betrayed King William — betrayed King 
James II. — betrayed Queen Anne — betrayed England to the 
French, the Elector to the Pretender, the Pretender to the 
Elector ; and here are my Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, the 
latter of whom has just tripped up the heels of the former, and, 
if a month's more time had been allowed him, would have 
had King James at Westminster. The great Whig gentlemen 
made their bows and congees with proper decorum and ceremony ; 
but yonder keen old schemer knows the value of their loyalty. 
1 Loyalty,' he must think, l as applied to me — it is absurd ! There 
are fifty nearer heirs to the throne than I am. I am but an acci- 
dent, and you fine Whig gentlemen take me for your own sake, not 
for mine. You Tories hate me ; you archbishop smirking on your 
knees, and prating about Heaven, you know I don't care a fig for 
your Thirty-nine Articles, and can't understand a word of your 
stupid sermons. You, my Lords Bolingbroke and Oxford, you 



78 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

know you were conspiring against me a month ago ; and you, my 
Lord Duke of Marlborough — you would sell me, or any man else, 
if you found your advantage in it. . . . Let us make the best 
of our situation; let us take what we can get, and leave these bawl- 
ing, brawling, lying English to shout and fight and cheat in their 
own way ! ' " 

Lectures on the Four Georges. George the First : 

William M. Thackeray. 

Rhythm. — Rhythm has been defined, in a broad 
sense, as the "law of succession." In speech it is 
simply a successson of accented syllables recurring at 
regular intervals. This recurrence of beats may be 
heard in many of the sounds of nature. Says Emer- 
son: — 

" For Nature beats in perfect time, 

And rounds with rhythm her every rune, 

Whether she work in land or sea, 

Or hide underground her alchemy. 

Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, 

Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 

But it carves the bow of beauty there, 

And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake." 

Rhythm in Prose. — The regular recurrence of an 
accented syllable may be heard in the best English 
prose. It is even possible to trace approximately the 
different measures of poetry in prose. 

Thus the following passage suggests the rhythm of 
Dactylic measure, an accented followed by two un- 
accented syllables : — 

" In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty 
desk and made an orchestra of it. Away they all went, twenty 



TIME. 79 

couples at once ; hands half round and back again the other way ; 
down the middle and up again ; round and round in various stages 
of affectionate grouping ; old top couple always turning up in the 
wrong place ; new top couple starting off again as soon as they 
got there, all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help 
them." — Charles Dickens. 

The following quotation from Carlyle moves in 
Iambic measure, an unaccented followed by an ac- 
cented syllable : — 

" Time itself, which is the outer veil of Eternity, invests, of its 
own accord, with an authentic, felt ' infinitude,' whatsoever it has 
once embraced in its mysterious folds. Consider all that lies in 
that one word, Past! What a pathetic, sacred, in every sense 
poetic, meaning is implied in it ; a meaning growing ever the clear- 
er, the farther we recede in Time — the more of that same Past we 
have to look through." 

BosweWs Life of Johnson : Thomas Carlyle. 

When the rhythms of prose recur too frequently or 
monotonously, the ornament becomes an affectation. 

Rhythm in Poetry. — In considering rhythm in poetry, 
the speaker is concerned chiefly with the relation of 
accent and pause in the different units of time. 
These units are the foot, the line, the couplet, the 
stanza. 

After much controversy among scholars, it was at 
last decided that the accent of English verse was 
produced by stress of voice rather than by the quan- 
tity of syllables, as in the ancient languages. With 
the added stress is associated also a slight rise in key, 
in the utterance of accented syllables, — and this 



80 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

without reference to the melody of emphasis. The 
different arrangements of accent in the foot produce 
the various metres of verse. These metres are by no 
means arbitrary, but are the results of the sequences 
of thought and emotion in the mind of the poet. It 

is said that the Iambic measure (thus, !|— P — P — I 

in music) with all its possible modifications by 
multiplication of syllables, variations in accent, 
and the use of pause, is typical of all English verse. 
Examples may be cited from the earliest battle 
songs, from dramatic poetry, as well as from the 
latest sonnets of the language. 1 However plausible 
it may seem to the speaker to adopt this musical 
notation of English rhythms, it is desirable to bear 
in mind the usual names given to the various 
metres, and to associate with them the movement of 
the lines. Any work on Rhetoric may be consulted 
for examples of the different metres. 

Pause. — There are three varieties of pause : — 

! Logical, 
Rhythmical, 
Dramatic. 

The Logical Pause has been described under " Res- 
piration," as an indicator of the slight breaks in the 
thought of a sentence, occasioned by its grammatical 
or rhetorical structure. 

i See Sidney Lanier's " Science of English Verse." 



TIME. 81 

The Rhythmical Pause marks the divisions of the 
various time-groups, the foot, verse, couplet, stanza. 
This pause may also include the so-called Caesural 
Pause, which, in Anglo-Saxon and Early English 
poetry, marked the middle of the line, or one of 
its sections. At the end of each foot, the pause, 
in continuous reading, is of the slightest possible 
duration ; at the close of the line it is somewhat 
longer, and at the end of a stanza it is still longer. 
Of course these pauses should coincide, wherever 
possible, with the logical pauses. This harmony of 
music and thought characterizes the work of the 
greatest poets. 

The Rhythmical Pause, according to some proso- 
dists, may also form, like the rest in music, a part of 
the metrical foot. An illustration of this function 
of the pause is given in the peculiar metre of Cole- 
ridge's " Christabel." Thus : — 

" ' Tis the mid | die of night | by the cas | tie clock | 
And the owls | have awa | ken'd the crow | ing cock. | 
1 Tu-whit! | 1 X | ^ Tu-whoo! | 1 X | 

This rhythmical use of pause is also given by Sid- 
ney Lanier in explanation of some of the puzzling 
irregularities of Shakspere's versification. It is evi- 
dent that in the quotation from " Christabel," the 
rhythmical pauses which occur in the line coincide with 
the dramatic pauses which the reader would make. 

One of the best illustrations of the close connection 



82 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

between the poet's thought and expression may be 
found in Shakspere's management of pauses. As he 
gained greater freedom in the use of verse, he changed 
the pause, which he first placed usually at the end of 
the line, to the middle of the following line. With 
this change of pause was also associated a modifica- 
tion of the last foot of the verse. By the use of 
monosyllabic "weak endings" with the " run-on" 
line, the thought is carried on with more elasticity 
and intensity into succeeding lines. Close compara- 
tive study of these changes has enabled scholars to 
fix approximately the chronology of the plays, by 
means of the so-called verse-tests. As this treatment 
of the pause is important to the reader, two examples 
of Shaksperean rhythms are given : — 

1. End-stopt lines. 

" At Pentecost, 
When all our pageants of delight were play'd, 
Our youth got me to play the woman's part, 
And I was trimmed in Madam Julia's gown, 
Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments, 
As if the garment had been made for me; 
Therefore I know she is about my height." 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV., 4. 

2. Run-on lines. 

In the following passage from "The Tempest," 
the rhythmical pause at the end of the line is almost 
imperceptible, while the main logical pause occurs in 
the middle of the line. 



TIME. 83 

Ferdinand. [To Miranda.'] 

" Full many a lady 
I have ey'd with best regard, and many a time 
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage 
Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues 
Have I liked several women ; never any 
With so full soul but some defect in her 
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd 
And put it to the foil." 

The Tempest, III., 1. 

The Dramatic Pause. — The dramatic pause is a 
silence occasioned by a marked interruption of the 
thought. It indicates primarily the personal feeling 
of the speaker. The dramatic pause may occur 
between the syllables of words, in the middle of a 
foot, or it may coincide with a rhythmical pause. 
This dramatic silence is an opportunity for panto- 
mimic expression, which should be a commentary 
upon the spoken words. 

" But you don't know music! Wherefore 
Keep on casting pearls 
To a — poet ? All I care for 
Is — to tell him that a girPs 
* Love ' comes aptly in when gruff 
Grows his singing. (There, enough!) " 

A Tale : Robert Browning. 

Preliminary Exercises in Time. — As the sense of 
rhythm is so universal, it is hardly necessary to 
recommend the scanning of verse. Indeed, it is 
often well to ignore the rhythm of verse, in order to 
secure clear delivery of the thought. Every intelli- 



84 A TEXT-BOOK OF ELOCUTION. 

gent reader should, however, be familiar with the 
different movements of English prosody. The actors 
of modern comedy who occasionally attempt to read 
blank verse, show their lack of training in rhyth- 
mical utterance. On the other hand, clergymen who 
are accustomed to the chanting of the liturgy and 
the reading of hymns, often carry the measured 
cadences into the prose of their own discourses. 

1. For Slow, Medium, and Quick rate of utterance, 
count 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, in the same given time, — 
say thirty seconds. 

2. Repeat appropriate phrases with the different 
rates of utterance. Read the examples given. 

3. Practise the different rhythms of prose and 
poetry as given above. Add other examples. 



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